Things Korean

By O-Young Lee

Containing photographs of everyday, antique objects along with insightful commentary, Things Korean is a useful guide to traditional life in Korea.

O-Young Lee, former Korean Minister of Culture gives us a survey of native objects from Korea, from totems(Changsung) to hair-pins(binyo), crock pots(Changdokdae) to temple bells(Jong), scissors(Kawi) to graves(mudon) explaining their significance and place in everyday Korean life.

Each item in the book is listed under its English and Korean name; a glossary is provided to further assist the reader. Lavishly illustrated with more than 100 color illustrations, Things Korean is a magnificent celebration of Korean culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Release date: Aug 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462908400

Book preview

Scissors and Their Country Cousin

Kawi

Among all our utensils is there any more familiar to us than scissors? There is not a household without a pair. East or West, they are one of those utensils most commonly unearthed from ancient burial sites.

Scissors, however, have not been blessed with a positive image. Designed for cutting things, these two blades using the awesome power of leverage both look and play the role of the villain. In that world of the sewing basket inhabited by the thread, needle and scissors, scissors, with their nature so different from the needle and thread lead an alienated and lonesome existence.

That figure of speech which has the thread following the needle is often used to signify the inseparable relationship of a loving couple, but it also shows the capacity of the needle and thread to unite that which is fallen asunder. The needle sutures the wounds which clothes receive in their much abused existence, and it mends new life into them when they seem to be on their last leg. The thread incorporates the nature of continuity. That is why parents like to think that when their baby, at that special celebration of his first birthday, happens to reach for the spool of thread (placed conveniently close to him for that very reason), he is guaranteed a long life.

But scissors cut things which are whole, and sever those which are joined together. Scissors signify to us separation, severance and elimination.

To the writer, scissors are the most fearsome of all our devices. In Korean we say censored writing has been scissored. In addition to their figurative role as the greatest enemy of the freedom of expression, in the West scissors are used as a simile for plagiarism. Imagine one writer scissoring out a useful part of another's writing, then fitting it into his own. Scissors, not the pen, plagiarize. And so we have the true story of how, on the opening night of a play by the nineteenth-century writer Alexander Dumas, the author's rivals sent him a pair of scissors instead of the usual bouquet of flowers. (Wherefore Dumas announced to his audience, Anyone who thinks he can write a play like this can have these scissors!, to which the audience responded delightedly with a vindicating round of applause.)

In Korean, we refer to the negative mark X as scissors, not only because of the shared meaning of the two, but also because of the strong resemblance between them in form.

There is another, happier image of scissors to be found in their country cousin, the shears of the taffy man. Clanking his huge shears, he makes the rounds of the neighborhood with his white twists and tan slabs, pieces of which he exchanges with the kids for whatever discarded goods they can scrounge for him. Those shears with their dull, loose blades do not look like they could cut a thing, and, indeed, can not. The taffy man long ago scissored the scissoring function out of these emasculated scissors, since he did not use them for their original function of cutting but simply to help sound his arrival. In that transformation from severing to serving, scissors were transformed from the role of villain to that of the much loved hero in children's tales and childhood memories.

Both scissors and shears work on the principle of leverage, but the taffy man's use of leverage has nothing to do with force. When the shears' lever-like blades meet, a lyrical sound, not destructive force, is produced. Those glinting blades of scissors with exact fit could never produce such a welcome sound as the jangling clank of the taffy man's shears. Only the loose, amiable blades of this artless and guilelessly dull work of gray steel can. Shears do not sever, they gather the children from around the neighborhood, unite like thread and needle.

The taffy man is no longer to be seen in the big cities these days. But still we hear the genial clank of his shears in our dreams.

It is not the horrifying quiet snip of scissors that you might hear in one of those dreams which Freud tells us originate in some subliminal castration complex. It is rather a sound which recalls the warm affection the taffy man stuffed into the extra chunks he always gave us.

A Hat of Principle

Kat

That which best manifests the nature of a building is its roof. Likewise, of all the different clothes man wears, that which best expresses the character of the person wearing it is the hat.

Both the roof and the hat are at the summit. closest to the sky. and both of them serve the purpose of protecting us from sun and rain. Let us turn it around once: the roof is the building's hat. the hat is a person's roof.

One architect even theorized that a roof in any one culture closely resembles the hats worn by the people of that culture. There is no difference between the turban of the Moslem and the onion-shaped roof of his mosque. And in European culture that hat worn by Napoleon's troops recalls to us the classical triangular stone roof supported by its rows of pillars.

Anyone who sees the undulating eaves of the Korean thatch-roof house sees in them the floppy brim of the reed hat worn by our travelers in the old days. Our point may be made even more clear if we suggest a juxta-position of the reed hat and the thatch-roof house with the sombre head gear of the patrician class-the kat— and the dignified tile-roof buildings of that class.

Korea's version of Confucianism, which came to dominate our society from the end of the fourteenth century, gave the kat a feature unique among hats of the world. While it resembles a roof, it does not serve the roofs function of protecting. From a practical point of view, on the face of this earth there is nothing more impractical than the kat. This headpiece, woven in a very loose and airy warp and woof from the hairs of the horse's tail, stops neither rain nor sun nor wind nor cold. In truth, a much more attractive aspect of this wondrous hat which, for all its lack of protection, one can wear without actually wearing, is the way it shows off the head under it. The topknot and the horsehair band inside are silhouetted as clearly as the form in a lace curtain window.

This is not to say, though, that the kat is for ornament. On the kat you see neither the resplendent gems nor the brilliant colors of great wealth or high authority. This black kat. even when worn at its usual casual tilt, is the ultimate expression of moderation and restraint.

But this is not to say that the kat is anything ponderous or oppressive, like some helmet or ceremonial hat designed to maintain a Spartan or sublime frame of mind. On the contrary, the unique feature of the kat, more than anything, is in its feeling of lightness. We might say it is the lightest of all hats known to us.

The kat is used neither for practical reasons nor for ornamentation. The act of wearing the kat, and the kind one wears, expresses an idea, a spirit, and identifies the one wearing it. We have the adage, Put on your kat and await your doom. This means that the kat bares to all the world your self, your mind and soul. Since the beginning of the Chosun Dynasty in the fourteenth century, the kat has announced the social position and the activity of the one wearing it.

In the nineteenth-century social critique, The Legend of Ho Saeng, we find an episode in which the hero tries to corner the market on the kat so that he can at least temporarily deprive the aristocrats and Confucian scholars of their mark of distinction, by which, in turn, he hoped to excise the problems inherent in the strict formalism of Confucianism. With this episode the author seemingly denounced not only Confucianism but the kat along with it. Rather than this being any insult to the kat, though, he inadvertently highlighted the kat's moral power.

The kat's message is manifest in the firm and straight consistency of the hair of the horse's tail. It is soft, not hard like steel. The kat's silken black sheen nevertheless manifests the strict integrity it attests to. The.material is itself the embodiment of the Korean spirit.

An Intimate String Instrument

Komungo

The distinctive nature of even musical instrument is manifested more in how it produces sound than in the sound it produces.

No matter how beautiful or peaceful the music from Western culture's musical instruments can sometimes be, one cannot escape the fact that these instruments have an aggressive character. The piano separates the performer from his audience and, despite the fact that it is a string instrument, is played like a percussion instrument, in that the performer has to beat on its key-board. The performer assumes an attitude of confrontation with his instrument. The same goes for the violin, in spite of the fact that the performer almost hugs it to himself. Observe a bit more closely how it is held in performance, and you will get the impression that some bird in the act of flying off into the blue has been caught in one hand, stuck up under the chin, and with the other hand is simultaneously being sawed in half and plucked of its feathers. The western instrument which seems to be most intimate with its human performer is the guitar. In both its timbre and in its role it is different from the instruments of soloist recitals. At countless campfires and parties and other social gatherings its congenial strains serve to bring all together in a communal spirit. It also shows great intimacy with its master, cradled as it is in his lap while he is playing it.

But even the guitar, in comparison with the Korean komunko, cannot completely shed the character of confrontation and aggressiveness. The guitar is grasped at its neck, and set up in the lap; the komunko. on the other hand, is not grasped or clutched anywhere, and is in a fully reclining position, rested across one's crossed legs. There is not the slightest hint of confrontation or aggression in the movement of the person playing the komunko. In the performer, left hand pressing the chords and right hand working the how, we see a mother stroking her sleeping baby, or one straightening the cover of the sleeping lover. On another occasion you will glimpse one feeling the brow of a sick friend, or another rinsing his hands in a flowing brook. If the Westerner were to see the komunko in action, he might see the Pieta. Man grieving over the lifeless body of the son on her lap. There is no sense of confrontation or struggle between the komunko and the musician playing it. They are the most intimate of friends.

In action, all musical instruments either stand erect by themselves or are propped up with something. As a rule, they produce sound when they are erect, and fall into silence when they are resting back in recline. But when an instrument assumes that erect posture, trying to escape the hold of gravity, its tone is going to be strident. When the violin is hitting its high notes, its song and the gestures of the one playing it shoot off sparks into the sky. And just picture those trumpets of the Fanfare reaching together to the heavens.

And then there is the komunko. the one exception to this rule that activity happens in an erect position. The komunko performs in recline, and rests standing erect, propped against something, after it has finished performing. So it is active in its horizontal state, and inactive in its vertical state.

When does the human being recline? Certainly not when he is working or fighting or in pursuit of his goals. The musical instrument, too, achieves its purpose when it is erect.

The komunko. however, could not impart the intimacy and tenderness it does if it were played in an upright position. This apparent paradox in the komunko may be the very reason we feel a real friend close by when we hear its moving strains.

The Egg Crib

Kyerankkuromi

The egg is a very fragile thing. Its shell. which gives way at the chick's first flexing of his muscles, is the most sensitive wall in all of life. It could very well he that this fact prompted the adage. You don't walk along the castle walls with a load of eggs.

Eggs can not sit still, and even a miracle could not make an egg stand on its end. Phis is where the well-known anecdote about Columbus' egg originates. And an egg will go had quickly. It will turn rotten just like that, if you do not sit there and watch it. Something that breaks so easily. that will not stay in one place, and goes had so quickly has got to he packaged properly. It is easy to see how the packaging industry started with the egg.

Koreans used to package their eggs in woven straw. That soft, absorbent straw which protected its eggs from shock and moisture performed the same function the nest does for a bird in providing coziness and security for its eggs.

The fact that Korea's egg crib is made of straw is interesting enough, but there is more. The Japanese, after all, also protect their eggs in straw. But there is a difference. The egg crib in Japan completely encloses the eggs, whereas the Korean egg crib has no top on it.

Why then would our egg crib stop half way up? The Japanese, thinking only of its main function, do it their way to protect the egg. But thinking only in terms of physical function prevents you from seeing the condition of the egg inside, and this ultimately defeats the purpose of the egg crib. When the buyer sees only a bunch of straw, and not what is inside, he will tend to forget how fragile the eggs are. The eggs inside want to warn. Be careful with us! but their warning is stifled under that tightly woven lid of straw. So the egg crib becomes a plaything of functional rationalism, that mighty god of modem industrial society who plays his destructive game with the form and structure of everything we build.

The Korean's topless egg crib accomplishes both the physical function of protecting the egg and the equally important function of conveying information. The one carrying the eggs, seeing the fragile things in their container, is constantly reminded of the necessity of careful handling. But even before the eggs are purchased and carried off, this uncovered container allows the customer to see how big or small the eggs are and what condition they are in.

This egg carton is remarkable not only for the information it provides. It is aesthetically pleasing. In its color, in its geometric balance of straight and curving line, in its texture of the organic and the inorganic, this straw crib for eggs evokes that sense of beauty one feels in the ideal blend of contrast and harmony which we can witness in the abstract sculpture.

When a package simultaneously performs the dual function of protecting and displaying its contents, it achieves complete justification for its existence.

What we have in the Korean egg crib is the dream of post-modernism, to free mankind from that over-simplification and minimalization born of the West's scientific rationalism. Inherent in the open Korean egg crib, which communicates with its bearer, is the authentic spirit of the rational. We might say that the Korean egg crib, with its aesthetic form, its scientific function, and its informative display of its contents, is the prototype of the modem package.

The Heaping Measure

Kobong

Kobong is a concept which